Year: 2002

Categories
Personal Publishing

The "Not the Best Weblog" Project

What is it?

The “Not the Best” project is really simple. It’s a tiny piece of code that post or stick in your template that will add the “Not the Best” box onto your site. The box includes a link to every British weblogger who decided not to participate in the Guardian’s Best British Blog competition. If you didn’t enter and you send in your site’s URL, we’ll add it to the box and it’ll be updated on everyone’s sites immediately.

How do I add the box to my site?

Here’s the code you need to cut and paste… You can put it on your site as a normal post in your weblog, or you can add it to your template. Whatever makes you feel most comfortable…

<script language="javascript" src="http://www.plasticbag.org/files/misc/bestbritishblog.js"> </script>

Here’s what it looks like at the moment…

What are the benefits to me?

On one side it gives you a chance to say publically and to the most number of people: ‘Best British Blog – not for me’. But more positively it also means that everyone gets to meet other people who feel the same way as them. And it might introduce new people to your weblog…

Why are you doing it again?

When the Guardian announced that it was going to run the Best British Weblog competition there were a wide variety of reactions. Some people were delighted and entered immediately. Others thought it was a slightly weird idea and entered anyway, others (like myself) thought it hadn’t really been thought through properly and wasn’t necessarily a good thing for webloggers and weblogging in general.

As we approach the announcement of the winner of the award it seems like the perfect time to celebrate some of the curmudgeons and grumps that (for whatever reason) decided not to play… And to waggle a friendly nose-finger at the Guardian in the process as well. Hence the “Not the Best” project…

But before I go any further I think it’s only fair to make it clear that anyone who has entered should feel that they have all of our best wishes. Good luck to you in the competition! And well done in advance if you should win. This isn’t about making other webloggers feel bad in any way.

Everyone who didn’t enter the competition had a different reason for doing so. Some people just thought they didn’t really have a chance of winning. Which is valid! Some just felt uncomfortable competing, others thought it was a popularity contest, some just didn’t understand the criteria that you could use to judge this kind of thing. Whatever your reason for not entering – altruistic, idealistic, jaded, bored or forgetful – you should feel able (welcome even) to participate…

So enjoy the variety of sites that decided fame and fortune were not for them – and if you want to join in the project yourself, remember – just stick this line of code on your site, and then e-mail a link to tom [at] plasticbag.org and I’ll add your site as soon as possible…

<script language=”javascript” src=”http://www.plasticbag.org/files/misc/bestbritishblog.js”> </script>

Categories
Random

On not entering the Guardian's Weblog Competition…

With a little under three days to go until the Guardian’s Weblog Competition closes, I’m now looking for British webloggers who didn’t enter and aren’t planning to do so. If that describes you (for whatever reason), then e-mail me and I’ll let you in on what I’m scheming.

Categories
Random

It's September, godammit! Where the hell is my iSync!? Where the arse is my iCal!?

Apple have been teasing us too long. I bought OSX.2 and frankly it’s lovely (took me a while to adjust, but now I’m in heaven). But what about iCal? What about iSync?! They say they’ll be released in September. But it is September godammit?! Where the hell are they!?

Categories
Radio & Music

On the bankrupcy of music

In the spirit of the Royksopp video for “Remind Me” comes a new infographically inspired video for a song by Legowelt. As videos become more and more spectacular and sophisticated (Michel Gondry’s work being particularly astonishing), I increasingly begin to wonder about the music that they are being attached to. Surely the songs cannot cost that much to assemble or perform? Certainly nowhere near as much as the videos must cost to make. Has the promotional device outstripped the product in creativity and artistic value? More at Barbelith

Categories
Random

BBC newsfeeds for all!

Newsreaders like NetNewsWire – like web browsers – get more and more useful as more resources come online that they can read. Which is why it’s such tremendously good news that BBC News has now released a public beta of an RSS feed to the general public. Thanks to Matt Jones for this one.

Categories
Random

Rip the heads off the puppies, you puppy-hating bastard you…

They’re pink and they’re asking for it and frankly you’ll be all too willing to oblige. It doesn’t seem to hurt the little bitches either… Pink exploding-head doggies courtesy of Anno.

Categories
Random

A murderer's web confessional?

A boy who bullies other kids at school gets hit by a car. Under the pretence of helping him, one of his previous victims drags him roughly to the curb, and while ‘trying’ to get him into the recovery position keeps pushing his body around until he’s convinced that he’s broken his neck. The boy dies shortly afterwards. The previous victim gets away scott-free. Or does he? First things first, because the neck-breaker decides to brag about his actions on Kuro5hin.org, triggering debates on both Kuro5hin and Metafilter about what should be done should the story prove to be true. And in the process they’ve named the individual concerned and posted the local police department’s telephone number.

This situation brings all those fundamental weirdnesses of the internet right back to the fore in my mind – the freedom of expression presented gives you access into the minds of people that were previously completely invisible to you. And sometimes that’s unpleasant, scary even. But what’s the truth here? Who online can know? Is this a talented fantasist’s rantings or an error in judgment by a remorseless man who believes still in the myth of total online anonymity? Is he sitting at home in Cornwall cold-sweating like a pig, or is he ice-cold, suited and booted at work? It’s difficult to know what to think, except that either way it smacks slightly of sociopathy…

Categories
Random

On Nationalism and Masculinity…

I started a thread on Barbelith yesterday called Crises of Modern Western Life in which I suggested that the two fundamental crises attacking Western identity at the moment were crises of nationality and crises of mascunlinity: “Both are fundamentally linked in some profound ways that I’m not sure I’m able to articulate – but are to do with ways of deriving pride or self-respect from some aspect of self-definition. I was wondering if anyone felt they could extend some of this thinking in a useful direction – suggest some linkages, some failures in my thinking or perhaps some other crises that my subservience to colonial middle-class hetero-patriarchal values may have forced me to put under some kind of erasure… ” I’d appreciate any thoughts anyone might have…

Categories
Random

Notting Hill fucked up my fucking life again…

You don’t want to watch Notting Hill. You really don’t. But it’s on television and it’s so bloody sticky and although you know it’s kind of going to make you want to kill everyone if you catch more than a moment of it, if you do catch a moment of it then it’s got you in its massive drooling fangs and it won’t let go – by god – no. But I don’t want any of it. I don’t want the crappy friends with broken bits, and I don’t want the Aryan Nation version of West London. I don’t bloody need Ronan Keating howling in my sensitive earbits. And most particularly I don’t want the godawful shame of getting really emotionally involved in it – and worst of all the hideous embarrassment of suddenly wanting one of those least fashionable of all things… A bloody boyfriend. It’s a phase. I’ll get over it. Godammit.

Categories
Random

On getting a fake tattoo

I went out last night to G.A.Y. ostensibly to see have a dance around and get drunk and watch the Sugababes, except I got a bit depressed and cynical quite early on in the evening and spent a couple of hours glaring at half-witted poofs all desperate to pair off as quickly as humanly possible. So instead, my friend Nick and I wandered off and got fake tattoos sprayed onto our aging flesh. Here’s mine: